Swanage Railway developments

I think the biggest problem is having to share the track into Wareham with National Operators. Now if Network Rail would single the track between Bournemouth and Weymouth perhaps Swanage Railway could adopt Spa Valley Railway's Eridge solution at Wareham.

 

Very funny! Well, it is Christmas. I found the discussion most helpful but it is clear that the fears, I assumed existing, do indeed exist. All the best for 2013 and hope to travel on the line next year (last chance??).

 

Sorry to keep on but this posting contains the classic misconception. The Wareham service would not"slot "around the heritage service" but vice-versa. Any heritage service would have to give way to the "public transport" one as it would be imperative for the latter to meet connections/pathways. It would be a change in the balance of power and not a subtle one.

PH

 

Is there such a big market for the Swanage to Bournemouth commuter? I'd have thought that more people would be going to Swanage as visitors, and they'd be happy enough on a 25mph 1960s DMU with a change at Wareham. Living in South west London and not owning a car, it'd be ideal for me!

 

Anyone interested in the fine detail can go here Purbeck Community Rail Partnership - dorsetforyou.com to see the minutes of the Purbeck Community Rail Partnership. A quick flick through these will give you a flavor of the process that is in motion. It doesn't look about to compromise a strategic transport initiative for the sake of a tourist attraction or someone's hobby.

Just an example of the level of expectation, In the meeting minutes of 11th January 2012 Cllr Beryl Ezzard "supported provision of a service meeting the needs of local people and not the provision of a ‘top-up’ service to the steam train. The service needs to be attractive so as to reduce road congestion and 40mph would be part of that."

paulhitch is right on the nose here.

To Kingscross, I would ask if you think there are enough people like you to fill a service to a profitable level?

As I said before, many possible futures. In the version of the future that has a extremely successful take up off the local passenger service, the heritage service will have to be cut back to make way for it in the name of progress.

Much the same process that saw off steam last time around.

 

Left field idea, not cheap, but given that:
1. A bay at Wareham would need to be rebuilt for the Swanage Branch trains (and run around - Water tower etc.)
2. The correct signalling would need to need to be put in place to allow regular movement on/off the Swanage Branch
3. Mainline certified locos and stock will be required.
it's not going to be a cheap option anyway...

There is plenty of ground at Wogret junction.
Would it be possible to build a joint NR & Swanage Railway station at Wogret?
That gives you the benefits of:
1. Connection with NR
2. No need to implement new signals on/off the branch (albeit there would still need to be changes)
3. Stock can remain heritage without needing to be mainline certified
4. Scheduling issues on the branch would not impact on the mainline services (and vice versa)
5. It *could* create a few jobs (always goes down well with the council)

Probably impractical, but worth a thought?

 

Joking aside. I still think the major problem to overcome will be how to dovetail commuter services not with heritage services between Norden and Swanage but with mainline services between Worgret junction and Wareham. The ideal solution would be a dedicated track, but I know that this is not possible. I know that this has been covered before but I did not understand it then and it hasn't become any clearer with the passage of time. Will commuter services be travelling the wrong way for part of the journey between Worgret, Wareham and Worgret or will both up and down lines be utilised? At the very least a third dedicated platform will be required at Wareham.

 

To answer these 3 points;

1. Network Rail have already installed a point East of Wareham Station to allow access from the UP line into the former sidings. SR trains will use this to runround before returning to the DN Platform.
2. DCC have already provided the £3million required to do this. I believe the first stages of work will be undertaken during an engineering possession in May 2013.
3. DCC have purchased suitable rolling stock for restoration, plus Swanage have potential solutions of their own as well. Don't know what the final plan is, but we shall find out sooner rather than later.

 

DCC have sold their 117 DMUs.

 

Reading the posts people seem to be split between the proposed mainline service being dead in the water/completely un-viable or the service aggressively expelling all steam and heritage operations entirely.

Surely the reality will be at neither extreme and be far less sensational?

 

Certainly agree
The very fact that so much interest has been shown on this topic indicates that Swanage Railway will get solid support whatever plan evolves. this is going to be a watershed moment in preservation history.If you haven't read it there is a prescient article on 'Lazarus Lines" in the RM. i suspect the SR will feature in this series in a prominent way. whatever side of the fence you are on, let's give the Swanage Railway an accolade for honouring the objectives of the founding members,I would remind everyone that without their efforts DCC intended to build a Corfe by-pass on the track bed and it took a hard political fight to stop it.
Even the most optimistic doubted that the Railway would succeed if it stopped short of Corfe.

 

Bearing in mind that any commuter service is bound to need a subsidy I wonder if anybody has looked into where the money is to come from?

Regards

 

Both could well happen together, leaving each of them with their legs sticking up in the air! There is a worrying amount of starry eyed romanticism evident.

P.H.

 

Well said OB. It should be the objective of every railway to try and obtain a network connection if viable, and not sit in decaying isolation. In the case of the SR I think a part time service would just about be viable, perhaps on summer weekends and maybe on shopper specials to Bournemouth in winter, even if not a year round commuter service. Any regular service would need funding support maybe using the Community Rail Partnership scheme which has worked so well in the West COuntry. IMHO The other equally big hurdle is line speed. Leisure travellers will tolerate a 25mph trundle as part of the day out, but regular travellers, whether commuters or shoppers will quickly tire of sub optimal travel time. Statistics clearly show that journey time is critical in winning business along with frequency and punctuality and 25mph will be at best a delimiter on the success of a commuter railway.
I don't see how that can be overcome with the single track signalling system in place, and with a heritage service running concurrently to boot.

 

You are going to need to explain why the lack of a network connection leaves a heritage railway decaying?
Why is a network connection such a holy grail?

Anyone who thinks that a slick, fast and direct utility service can find a path through the SR summer time table without compromise from the heritage services is either not living in reality or needs to sign up as as a volunteer and come write the timetable and make it work.

Are the posters on here that support bringing in a modern passenger service happy to see the heritage railway scaled back to accommodate it? Or do they just not believe that the heritage operation will need to suffer? Its not just the timetable. The problem off the modern utility, or 'amenity' service as it is referred to, taking income from the heritage service will still be a problem even if the time table issues can be solved. I'm not sure that a subsidy will cover that angle as well.

And do people appreciate the amount of extra infrastructure that is required to be maintained to support it and the additional staffing levels?

I think the point about there having to be winners and losers in the process of finding the new status quo is going to prove to be true.

I'm surprised that on a heritage forum there isn't more concern for guarding the interests of a heritage operation. domeyhead seems to regard the heritage service and slow line speeds as being a bit of an nuisance to the 'optimal community rail service'.

 

But hasn't the decision already been made to have a regular through service? Dorset County Council has committed £3M to the new signalling arrangements at Worgret Junction to enable this.

 

Pugwash, the physical isolation needs no explanation (no charters etc) but I was also concerned at the symbolic isolation. Museums have realised that they need to adapt and change their product to capture a healthy level of returning business and not rely on the once-only visitor. Many lines already mix "pure heritage" timetables with other products such as childrens TV characters, Santa specials, wine and dine trains etc which had no equivalent back in the day on the lines in question, so the "Pure heritage" aspect of many lines has been scaled back dramatically as a means to maintain an income stream.
Regarding your last sentence you are partly right - forward thinking Swanage members see the idea of restoring a "proper" service to the main line in some way as the pinnacle and vindication of all the hard work and vision of 40 years ago. I wish the Mid Hants had also had the commitment to purchase the whole 18 miles to Winchester Jcn back in seventies but the share issue failed. If it had succeeded we'd be seeing the same aspirations played out there as well. Heritage operations would continue in tandem with a regular service, but of necessity if you offer a public service commitment and take public funding to do so you must honour it so they would have to make concessions.

 

A regular service may be an aspiration, but I don't think there is yet any agreed plan ? I suspect that initially we will only see through servcies on special occasions, galas events etc.

David

 

Dorset County Council may be looking for a regular service in return for their expenditure on the new signalling. Through services are already running on an occasional basis, but the new signalling is to enable a regular service - at least that is my understanding, I'm never one to turn away from instruction if that's wrong!

 

I think there is a big difference though between Santa / Thomas / Wine and Dine and a genuine commercial non-heritage "utility" service.

In the former case, they may not be "heritage". but they use the normal heritage infrastructure, rolling stock and can be timetabled within the constraints of a heritage timetable (25mph running etc) and to fit around any normal service trains. Everything is within the control of the heritage operator. Essentially, such services may not be "heritage", but they fit the same operational constraints as the pure "heritage" service and thus can be run with minimal disruption or additional cost to the core heritage operation.

Whereas as soon as you run a "utility" service, especially one that also has to fit in with mainline trains, everything changes. Your equipment has to me maintained to mainline standards, your timetable has to fit round mainline services etc. It is a much much more fundamental change than simply running a few "non heritage" services to attract a different clientele or encourage repeat visits.

You also have a much more of a responsibility to make sure the service runs and to provide alternative arrangements if it doesn't. For example, suppose you are a steam line running a two-train service, but in the morning one engine is unservicable. Most heritage lines would probably just run a single train, (assuming no other serviceable engine could be lit up / fired up in time), maybe with a re-jigged timetable to minimise service gaps and ensure no passengers get stranded and hopefully most passengers would accept it as the vagaries of running a service with old equipment. I doubt many heritage railways would put on a bus replacement service in those circumstances, but if you were a "utility" operator, that is what you would have to do.

I also wonder what the long-term effect of getting volunteers to run signalling, inspect the P/Way etc would be just to run a commercial service. The times could potentially be quite anti-social: it's one thing volunteering as a signalman to man a box between, say, 10am and 5pm; quite another to man it from 7am to 7pm (probably with a double shift, so twice as many people needed) to run a commuter service.

Finally, I also wonder on what the impact of running more modern rolling stock would be even on the beach market. At the moment, we quite frequently visit Swanage beach. We park at Norden and take the (steam) train to the beach, and when you set the cost of the ticket and the convenient location of teh station against the cost of parking in Swanage and the inconvenience, it makes a nice day out. But I doubt we would do the same if it was just some SWT DMU running the service; we'd probably just go to somewhere else like Lulworth Cove instead. So a move away from heritage to utility might have an adverse effect on at least some customers.

So if I were a Swanage Railway member (I'm not, for the record) I would be very wary about going down a "utility" service route. I simply can't see the two aspects - utility and heritage - being a happy mix.

Tom